Risk Failure
by itsLisey
Summary: My name is Alexandra Margarita Russo, and I could die today, or tomorrow, and I might be bringing the people I love with me. Sequel to Talent Show.
1. Experience

Sometimes, nothing is enough.

Only once and a while do I ever sit down and think about life. What's the point, really? Why sit around and think about life when you could be experiencing it, right? That's what life is: experiences. Life is one big experience. My name is Alexandra Margarita Russo, and I have one hell of a big boat of experiences shipping my way.

My experiences sometimes are different from, say, my best friend, Harper. Harper is, for lack of a better word, eccentric. She makes her own clothes out of plastic (and sometimes real) fruit, her hair is the color of red crayon, and she's so pale that you wonder if she has ever gone outside in her life. She lives with us, or rather my family, because her family moved away. Black sheep of the family? Yes, definitely. We're an Italian-Hispanic family, and to top it off, we also happen to be Wizards.

I'm not lying.

I suppose that could be a reason my mom and Harper get along so well. My mom isn't a Wizard either. She's a mortal, and she married my dad, which is not necessarily the reason my dad doesn't have his powers anymore, but it plays a good part in it. We can get to that later. But my dad teaches my brothers Justin and Max, and myself, magic, even if he doesn't have powers himself. We're a big, weird, magical family and we wouldn't have it any other way.

I don't live with my family any more. Well, that's not true. I pop in from time to time for my Wizard lessons and nights that my mom wants to have family dinner. But I live in Hollywood, California and I act on a show called So Random. Heard of it? I didn't think so. I live in a magically built room hidden behind a plastic fake sarcophagus and between acting, school, and magic lessons, I'm making out with my co-star Sonny Monroe. She's a girl. Yeah.

It's new, Sonny and I. We're new. When I first met her, I wasn't sure about her. Sooner than later, I was falling in love. Too soon, a wall was falling on us, literally. Megan, my dad's estranged sister, decided she wanted my magic. Did I mention that I have some weird funky out of this world magic thing going on with my body? Oh yeah, big old family curse. Megan's still out there. Does it scare me? Well, hell yeah. But it scares me more that Sonny is a target. Justin insists that Sonny will be okay, but when have I _ever _listened to Justin?

To answer your questions: no, my mom and dad don't know about Sonny and I. Why? Because I would be in the first portal home, and not because my parents are homophobic, but because I have my own 'home' of whatever proportion in California where Sonny can stay at any time of the day (or night, which would pop in their brains real soon). Sure, I could pull the whole, _Mom, it's not like I can get pregnant, _thing, but why not avoid it all together? Yeah, that sounds like a _much _better plan. I'd like to _experience life _a little more before my mom comes at me with a kitchen knife and my dad locks me in the magic lair for a month without junk food.

Regardless of what my parents know or don't know, I'm enjoying my life. The air in L.A has a grungy, bad after-taste, smoggy likeness, and my cast members have become a family away from my family, which is both an incentive to stay and an incentive to leave now, don't look back, and run back to New York. And Sonny is another part of my life entirely. She's mixed into my two worlds now, although I'm still trying to decide if that's safe or not. Megan is out there, waiting, cooking up a scheme, stealing someone's magic, doing something to try and get to me.

Life doesn't stop for her though. I have three skits to film in the next hour, a date with Sonny tonight, a wizard lesson tomorrow with my dad, and a secret private lesson with Justin as we try to figure out how to break this godforsaken curse that is controlling my entire life from now until we stop Megan.

Or until I die.

I try not to think about that.

My name is Alexandra Margarita Russo, and I could die today, or tomorrow, and I might be bringing the people I love with me.

**Review please?**


	2. Turkey Pox

**I'm thinking I'll try and do chapters every Saturday. Sound good?**

When I walk onto set, I check my watch. No one is around, not even Sonny, who wakes up earlier than the rooster himself, and the lights are dark. For once, I think, I'm on time and everyone else is late. What the crap is this nonsense? I fumble for a light switch in the dark, hoping that the knob will stick out, but all I feel is the concrete of the wall and some ropes for the curtains. I've never turned on the lights before, mostly because all the knobs and buttons are too much for me to process all at once. I bump in to a bucket that has been lying around set for about a year and a half now. My shoe loops between the buckets brim and the handle, and before I can brace myself on the wall or grab a rope, I hit the floor.

"It's going to be one of those days," I mumble, rubbing my head. My body struggles to pull my weight up, and I start detangling my foot. It's not an easy task, either, just so you know. Not when it's pitch black, your head is throbbing, and you have that tingling sensation in the back of your throat that someone is watching you, the kind of feeling you only get when it's so dark you can't see your own hand and you're just waiting for a murderer to jump out from behind something and hack your body into tiny little pieces. Maybe it's because of my over active imagination, or maybe because I'm just so paranoid that I'm delusional, but when the lights fling on and I hear twenty people screaming Happy Birthday, Alex, I nearly shit myself. My body flings itself so high in the air that when I hit back down, my foot which I had finally freed is back in the bucket. Heart racing, head spinning, I slowly am pulled up on my feet by Justin and Sonny.

"What the _hell,_" I whisper to Sonny.

"Happy Birthday, Alex." She's whispers back into my ear. Even though I'm not looking at her, I can feel the smile on her face. Her hand snakes around my waist discreetly, so as not to call attention to our relationship, and presses her thumb into my side, trying to let me know that yes, it's okay to breathe now, because no, no one is going to murder me. Her hand leaves before I'm able to grab it, and it's back at her side. Justin puts his arm around my shoulder and drags me away from her and into the arms of my mother, and then my father, Harper and Max, and then to Grady, Nico, Marshall, Zora, and a few of the other friends I've made on set here at So Random. There is a huge cake on the snack table with purple icing, and possibly the biggest pizza I've ever seen at 9 o'clock in the morning. I spot my mom's famous taquitos. How did she manage to bring those? Everyone here must assume that my family flew in on an airplane, and not through magic. Maybe my friends are even denser than I originally thought.

I try and make my way back to Sonny but my mom drags me over to my dad again.

"Magic lessons this Saturday," he says quietly, peering around the room. As if anyone can hear him over the loud music blasting through the studio. I nod, but honestly, I'm so sick of magic lessons that I could care less. My eyes travel across to where Sonny is talking to Grady. She's laughing; I want to hear the joke too. Quickly, I squeeze through a hoard of people but Max stops me.

"Alex, I've _got _to show you something."

"Right now?" I say impatiently.

"Yes!" He tugs at my hand and drags me along. We're at the other side of the studio now where it's less crowded with people but more crowded with yesterdays costumes hanging on racks and the cameras that were shoved off to the side for the party. I grunt as I'm pulled down to the ground by Max and shoved into a darker corner. "Do you see _her_?" He points to the only other person who is in the same area as we are: Zora. I start laughing and Max hushes me. I lower my voice to a whisper.

"Well, yeah, I see her. She's not invisible, Maxy. That's Zora."

"You _know her?_"

"Max," I whine. "Do you not watch the show?"

"What show?"

"So Random…"

"What's that?"

"Oh my god," I smack my hand against my forehead. "I swear, Max."

"Don't let mom and dad hear you,"

"What?"

"Swear, don't let them hear you. You just said you swear."

"Ok, let's just focus on the issue at hand." I sigh. "Yes, Max. I know her. Her name is Zora. Why?"

"She's pretty."

"Uh, I guess." When did my little brother refer to girls as _pretty? _

"Can you introduce me?" There are only a few moments where Max and I truly have ever connected. We're brother and sister, yes, and we love each other, yes, but we're two completely different human beings. I'm not even sure if Max is of the same species as the rest of us, sometimes. But as I stare at him, at my not-so-little brother, all I can think of is the little boy he once was. He's still goofy and stupid, and he can be a pain in my ass, but he's all grown up. It makes me sad. He's smiling all giddy like, and it reminds me of the time where I was seven and he was five. The marker slipped off the paper and across the table. Max looked at me, and I looked at him, and we both looked at Justin's smug 'I'm telling mom' face. He took off and left Max and I alone, waiting for our mother to come and yell at Max for the marker. Max looked up at me, his eyes weak and innocent, and said just one word: help. I grabbed the marker and put the cap on, climbed as quickly as I could to the counter and grabbed a wet sponge. Max didn't help scrub, but he looked at me with the biggest brown eyes I'd ever seen. His hair was a mess, his face was dumbstruck, but there was something in his eyes that day that is similar to what's in his eyes now.

"Yeah, come on little bro." I throw my arm across his shoulder.

"_Now?_"

"Well, when did you prefer? When you're ninety?"

"Well, I,"

"Now." I call over Zora. She looks up, sees me, and skeptically skips over. "Zora, this is my brother Max. Max, this is Zora. Zora, Max likes you." I take off, sprinting so quickly away from my little brother and Zora that I manage to trip over air. This time, though, I catch myself on a railing. I know Max is back there cursing my name in his head, but what are older sisters for, anyway? He just said introduce him.

Justin's voice carries over everyone's. He's chatting up Lynda, my twenty-six year old hair stylist. It makes me laugh. Did the Russo boys come not to wish their sister a happy birthday, but to hook up with California girls? She's standing awkwardly with a pepsi can in her hand, and nodding politely. My mom is with Sonny's mom, and that makes me nervous. Not because I don't want them to be friends, but because I know my mom and she has baby pictures in her purse and a collection of Alex stories. They're laughing and eating some of the taquito's my mom brought. I cringe and turn away. Max is still with Zora, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but they would be the perfect couple.

"Hey," Sonny speaks softly into my ear. I smile and turn around. I haven't seen her all morning, and she's the one that threw me the party. I want to hug her, kiss her, or even just hold her hand but I stop myself. She smiles back, a little glint in her eyes, and I nod towards the door. Everyone is too preoccupied to notice our leave, and once we're safely in the hallway, we duck into one of the spare dressing rooms. 'Hey," Sonny says again, a little more shyly. I hook my arm around her waist and drag her to the couch. Finally, I can't help but think. It's quiet.

"You didn't have to do all of this," I mumble through a smile. My elbow props up my head and I rest my back against the art rest. Sonny sits across from me, her legs against her chest, and her head resting on the top of her knees. Her arms wrap around her legs holding them as close to her body as possible. "I didn't even think you knew when my birthday was," She laughs and smiles at me.

"I talked to Justin," she replied, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I knew it had to be coming up. Process of elimination, you know?"

"Thank you," I smile. My hand reaches out to hers.

"You're welcome," Her hand grabs mine and squeezes. We're rarely alone anymore. We have class and rehearsal, and I have wizard lessons, and Sonny has family here. It's nice being alone for once. Sonny looks around the room, her eyes looking from the floor to the wall to the ceiling and back to the door, but anywhere but mine. I suppose that after spending so much time together with other people, it's only bound to be awkward spending time together alone. I'm not going to lie, I feel awkward too. I'm not a shy person, but Sonny makes me feel anxious, as though at any moment, something about us could break. We're new, this is new, but I want her to look me in the eye and realize exactly what I'm feeling: happy. I'm happy. I could never have been this happy with Dean, and if I was, I don't remember it, and that just proves that it wasn't happy enough. The way Sonny makes everything in the world seem so innocent, it drives me crazy. She's possibly the only person in the world that can both infuriate me and make me smile at the same time. Today, she looks gorgeous, and I can tell that it was effortless to do so. She only has a dab of blush on her cheeks, because her cheeks are already so naturally rosy. Her brown hair is pulled up, (which is rare), and a few strands are hanging down. It's so simple and yet, to me, it's flawless. I envy her. It would take me hours to pull off that look.

"You look…" I stutter, feeling shyer than ever before. "Beautiful."

"Thank you." Her voice is just above a whisper. My thumb runs over the palm of her hand, and then I close my fingers between hers. We're both smiling. Our relationship, I'll admit it now, is complicated. We've kissed only twice; the first time we kissed, and once when I was in the hospital. Hey, stop judging. I told you, this is _new. _I try readjusting my body a little without too much effort, but I only situate myself uncomfortably on the couch, in one of those positions that bothers you so much you have to stand up and re-sit back down in order to regain any form of comfort. Sonny lets out a little laugh.

"What?" I say innocently, hoping that comfortableness will come with time. It doesn't.

"This is weird,"

"Yes." I breathe a sigh of relief.

"I'm not sure what to do," she admits. "We're never alone."

"I know," I pause. "Hold that thought." Our hands break apart and I stand up, smoothing out my shirt and sitting back down, this time closer to Sonny. "Ok, _much _better."

"Alex?" She takes my hand again. "Would it be okay…if…"

"Yeah?"

"If…I…kiss you?" She looks down to the ground.

"Yes," I say, too quickly than I would have liked. Her smile widens. "I mean… we're dating, right?"

"Yes."

"Yeah."

"Alright." Sonny moves a little bit closer, but stops, so I move the rest of the way. Her eyes are still looking down at the ground, and I can't help but look too, hoping that maybe there is something so interesting down there that it could explain the reason she won't look at me, but all I see is cheap grey carpet. My finger lightly grazes her cheek and she looks up, startled.

"We've done this before," I'm speaking quietly, despite there being no one around to hear our conversation. "In fact, I remember you sexually assaulting me in the prop room." Her cheeks turn a deep shade of red. "Sonny," My voice is a little bit harsher now. "I like you."

"I like you too."

"Kiss me, please." I know I'm begging. I probably sound like a fool. But, I've been wanting this to happen for weeks now. It took me two long weeks of recovery in a hospital, with Sonny at my side every minute of every day, but along with Sonny was my family. Then, we had to get right back to work. I want this.

Sonny doesn't hesitate, though. It's like all she needed to hear was me saying the words. My hand rests on her waist close to her hip, and the other one grazes her cheek. This kiss is different than the others we shared; the first kiss was spontaneous and random, and the next just the same. Now, this kiss, this is different. It's slow and graceful, but passionate, our lips two ballerinas sliding across a stage with fireworks and strobe lights behind us. Sonny moves closer to me and I lean back more so my back rests on the arm of the couch. She brings her hands into my hair, playing with the strands and twirling them with her fingers. I pull away and cup her face with my hands.

"I like you," I say again.

"I like you too," she repeats. We kiss once more, and she then rests her head on my shoulder. "This is different."

"What is?"

"Kissing a girl," she says slowly. "I've never-"

"Me either."

"I like it," She says, her head buried in my shoulder. I think she's trying to muffle her voice. I can hear her perfectly.

"I do too,"

"We should go back."

"We should."

"Do you want to?"

"Well, this couch is pretty comfortable. So not really."

"Your parents are out there. My mom is out there."

"Yeah," I sigh.

"Later?"

I take her hand and wrap it in my own, and then we walk to the door. With her only free hand, she tries to open the door, but I gently shove her sideways a little and block the handle. Sonny steps back, and I smile. "I forgot something." Her head tilts to the side, and then a small, toothy smile reflects back at me. I lean in and kiss her.

"We have two weeks, guys." Marshall bows his head and taps his foot. Grady, Nico, Zora, Sonny and I are all sitting in the prop room. It's a Saturday morning and way too early to be awake. Grady's eyes keep opening and shutting, and Nico sits next to him, his head slumping to the side every few minutes. Zora _is _asleep, her head leaned all the way back against the couchs back. Sonny is the only one out of all of us that is wide awake. She's got a small, half-smile on her face and her eyes have that 'I'm a really perky, morning person' twinkle. "Two weeks to pick up our ratings, or the show is canceled. It's as simple as that." Every single one of us bolts upright. Sonny's face drops. Zora's mouth hangs open. Nico and Grady, looking completely dumbfounded, stand upright. And me? I slip off my seat, the armrest of the chair.

"Sorry, what?" I say. Marshall pulls up a clipboard from the coffee table and tosses it to me.

"We're low, really low."

"How?" Sonny shrieks. "We're were just up! Up, really up!"

"Mackenzie Falls changed their time slot," he explains. "We're competing against each other now. And, if people have to choose, they're going to choose a crappy, teenage drama compared to a comedy sketch show. We're in 2010, guys. People want emotion, people want anger, people want ridiculous half-baked Twilight-esque romantic dramas. Mackenzie has all of that wrapped nicely with a Chad Dylan Cooper action figure. We've got to move it and find a way to get our ratings up or else So Random will be so done." Grady and Nico sit back down and put their heads in their hands. Zora, very unamused, seethes next to Sonny. Sonny stands up and begins pacing back and forth. Marshall takes that as his cue to leave. Everyone knows that once Sonny starts pacing, it means the wheels in her head are turning and something is about to churn out. What that something is, is the scary part.

"This isn't fair!" Sonny's voice goes up a few octaves. She throws her arms down and stares at me. "How do we get our ratings up?"

"How should I know?" I slip into Sonny's vacated seat and lean back.

"Don't you care?"

"Of course I care, Sonny. I'm on the show too. But there isn't some magical way we're going to get more ratings in the next few days." I stop talking. Sonny looks at me curiously. The other three keep staring, puzzled, into the air, completely oblivious to the silent communication Sonny and I are exchanging. Something is telling me that this is a bad idea. Tell me something I _don't _know. "Want to go to my house for dinner tonight, Sonny?"

"We're about to lose the show and all you can think of is food?" Zora asks incredulously.

"I'm hungry," I say defensively.

"Yes," Sonny says quickly before Grady can interrupt.

"Can we come?" Nico asks. I hesitate, glance at Sonny, and then back at the other three. Uh, yeah, sure goes, hold on let me go get my wand and magically zap us to New York? Yeah, this is going to go over really well. I edge my way around the table and begin backing up towards the door. Sonny grabs my wrist and pulls me back. She's not going to let me run away.

"Well," I manage a few stutters and slurs of half-spoken words. "My brother is actually really sick. It would be a bad idea."

"But it's a good idea for Sonny to be there?"

"She's immune," I reply quickly. "Chicken pox. Sonny already had them."

"I got the vaccination," Grady says. Zora nods and so does Nico. They all got the damn vaccination.

"It's a rare chain of chicken pox." My eyes dart over to Sonny, who is standing with a bemused smirk on her face and her hands folded across her stomach. "Apparently, it's not really chicken pox, but they don't have a name for it yet, and it gives you the same symptoms _as _chicken pox. We've been calling it turkey pox, since he likes turkey. A lot. It's a east side of the United States thing. That's why Sonny has had it, because she's from Wisconson. That's on the east side of the country."

"Wisconson isn't near New York," Nico shakes his head, looking confused. "Is it?"

"No, pea brain. Wisconson is near Michigan and Minnesota. New York is by Vermont and Pennsylvania."

"They're close, though." My voice drops quieter as I reach the though in my sentence. "Wisconson and New York are actually really close in comparison to Wisconson and New York to California, so, it's really, it's just, it makes sense, okay?"

"Have any of you ever been to Alex's house?" Grady asks.

"Not me," Nico says.

"Definitely not." Zora pulls an apple from her pocket and takes a bite. "In fact," Chew, chomp, chew. Bite. "I don't even know where you live, Alex."

"Oh," Come on Sonny, a little help? She's still standing there with a stupid smile on her face. "I live around here."

"Where is here?"

"Here, like, around the studio… a neighborhood near here." Sonny lets out a laugh, covering not so smoothly with a rough cough. I see her eyes dart over to the sarcophagus, where we spend many evenings in my bedroom watching movies or running lines. Get your minds out of the gutter, you pervs.

"Sonny has been to your place tons of times I bet," Nico points his finger at Sonny, who holds her hands up, palms facing Nico, in a 'hey don't look at me' type of way. "Why don't you let us come over, huh? We're your cast members too,"

"It's complicated?" I take a look down at my wrist, hold it up to my face, and pretend to check a watch, which is conspicuously absent from my body. "Look at the time," I feign in a rush. "I really have to go. We'll figure out a way to get ratings up later!" Before Sonny can grab my hand again, I bolt. I hear the door shut behind me, open again, then shut, and then a burst of uncontrollable giggles. "You could have helped me out, you know!" I don't even look back. I know it's Sonny.

"You did fine," she lies.

"I told them my brother has the turkey pox."

"They bought it."

"That's not saying much for them," I point out. "Anyway, dinner tonight?"

"Yes," She's still trailing behind me, even with her long legs. "Hey, wait." I stop, and she pulls me back. "You're not mad at me, are you?" My expression softens, and I look down the corridor behind her for any strangling cast members or crew. My lips brush her cheek, leaving a patch of reddened skin from a creeping blush.

"I'm not mad,"

"Sorry I didn't help,"

"You can make it up to me," I smile coyly.

"Why Ms. Russo, I've no idea what you mean."

"Mind out of the gutter, Monroe. I was thinking you could hold the spell book while _I _look up a spell to get our ratings up and Mackenzie's down."

"This sounds like a bad idea,"

"If I listened to every person who told me that what I was about to do was a bad idea, I'd have a lot less groundings under my belt and Tokyo never would have had to deal with the giant monkey. How much fun would the world be then?"

"Godzilla was the monster in Tokyo…"

"That's what you think," I wink and run down the hall, Sonny chasing after me. For the first time in a long while, I can't wait to practice some magic.

**Review please.**


	3. Breakdown

"This is not a good idea," Harper groans. We've been looking for a spell for a week now. With only a week left in our two-week deal at the studio, the pressure has been on. Even after an exhausting evening of looking through spell books the first night, we still hadn't located a spell to help with the show. Harper hasn't skipped a beat, though, and every night that we're sprawled over an assortment of spell and charm books, she's right behind me telling me what a bad idea it is to try and do a spell. Sonny is lying out on the couch in the lair while Harper stands over my shoulder pestering me with what ifs. Several magic books are spread out onto the oak table, each with its pages facing up. My eyes spread across the books. "Alex, if your dad catches you…"

"Which is why I'm not going to get caught, Harper." I say exasperatedly. Sonny chuckles from the couch, flipping a page in the book she's looking through. It's nice having a friend that doesn't know about all my magic screw ups.

Yet.

For now, she doesn't have a worry when it comes to me and magic. Sonny doesn't know about the time I nearly destroyed my family, or corrupted the space time continuum, or when I accidentally turned my fifth grade teacher into a bird. She has a completely unbiased point of view. Harper circles the table again, sighs, then places the palms of her hands flat onto the oak and looks my directly in the eye.

"What happens if something goes wrong?" she mutters under her breath. I look over to Sonny, who doesn't look up.

"Nothing will," I hiss. "Can't you have a little faith?"

"You've known Sonny for less than three months, Alex," Harper glances over to Sonny as well, then grabs my wrist and pulls me a little further into a corner. "She doesn't understand magic the way I do."

"Right now I consider that a good thing,"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"All anyone in this family can think when they see me is my screw ups," I vent. "Justin is the perfect wizard. Justin will win the family magic. Justin never messes up. Alex, though, Alex can't do magic to save her life, and apparently not Sonny's either, since I had to have Justin save me there, too." When I say it, I don't believe it came out of my mouth. Harper lets her lips part a little, then close, and then open again, and then finally they settle on staying closed. I've left her speechless with my five second rant.

It's not as though I'm bitter that Justin saved us. No, I'm glad he did, of course. And I'm glad that, even though I stupidly didn't call him when Sonny was first abducted, that he knew how to find me. I'm relieved that Justin saved our lives; I just wish it had been me that _really _saved Sonny. I wish I could have done it on my own. I wish I could prove to everyone that, just maybe, Alex Russo isn't such a horrible wizard after all. I look over to Sonny, still absorbed in her book, and bow my head a little. She thinks I'm something I'm not. I'm not this great wizard. She's putting her trust into someone who can't handle their own powers.

I didn't not call Justin out of lack of thought; I didn't call him because I didn't want him. I wanted to do it by myself. How can I be a great wizard when I put Sonny's life, and my life, in danger, simply by not wanting any help?

"I'm doing this," I say stubbornly, looking Harper in the eye now. "It's a simple spell."

"How do you know it's simple if you haven't even found it yet?"

"If you don't want to be a part of this, then go." The words come off my lips harsher than I wanted. Harper spins around and leaves, slamming the door on her way out. It's the first time Sonny is startled out of her book.

"What happened?" she sits up. I shake my head, sit down in the large matching chair behind the table, and flip another page in the book.

"Nothing,"

"Something."

"Hey, here is a spell!" My finger traces the lines of the words, reading them off my lips silently. Sonny bolts over to me, her hair falling lightly over her shoulder and grazing my neck, letting a sweet strawberry scent waft to my nose. She urges me to read it out loud. "Voltus abeo, also known as the 'In the Eye of the Beholder spell', changes the appearance of one to his or her peers. Although the change isn't physical, how the person is perceived by others is altered." I take a deep breath. "In order for spell to be properly performed, caster must first prepare a potion…" My heart drops a little. "…a potion," I repeat. "…containing the following ingredients: finely trimmed lemon shavings, essence of Giant, two drops of Madame Mildred's Magical Mousse, two teaspoons ghost sweat, and an entire bottle of Whiskey." Whiskey? Shrugging, I continue reading. "Combine all ingredients in cauldron, size small, and stir carefully counterclockwise for twenty minutes precisely. Let simmer over open flame until a deep, putrid green. When desired color is reached, pour into an average sized bowl and bake into personal favorite treat, such as brownies, cookies, cakes, muffins or breads."

"Takes an entirely new meaning to 'special brownies'," Sonny mutters.

"Feed treats to individual and provide five minutes for ingredients to settle. Afterwards, enjoy in casting the spell and watching the effects take place soon thereafter." I bookmark the page and close the book, letting my thoughts settle in the front of my brain. This spell is a _lot _more complicated than I thought.

"Can you do it?" Sonny asks.

"Of course I can do it," I snap. She takes a step back. Whoops. "I mean," Shoving foot in mouth can now commence. "…yes, Sonny, I can do it. I'm sure Justin has the Mousse and we've got lemons in the kitchen. Dad probably has whiskey stashed somewhere in here where my mom can't find it. Check that cabinet for ghost sweat, will you?" I point to a shelving unit on the wall with doors attached. While she looks in there, I dig through the bottom cabinets on the other side of the room for essence of giant. Hugh Normous, a friend from the Wizard world, brought us some as a gift shortly after we settled matters with his parents regarding his adoption.

"Looking for this?" I turn around and stand up. Harper is back, and in her hand, the tiny vile of giant essence. She tosses it to me.

"Thanks," A weak smile. Behind her, Sonny is looking up from her search. She smiles, too, but a large, genuine one. She's smiling at me. "Really," I add in for effort.

"Justin is upstairs. I would wait to get the lemons,"

"You overheard?"

"Yes," she admits. "Unfortunately. I still don't like this, and other than that little bottle I'm not going to be a part of it. This is cheating."

"Maybe Harper is right." Sonny slowly walks over to us. Surprised, Harper grins. Well, crap. "I mean, we're not being very fair, are we? Using magic against Mackenzie Falls. Shouldn't we want to be number 1 without magic?"

"They knew taking our time slot would push us out!"

"Maybe if we talk to Chad," she suggests.

"You're kidding, right?" Talking to Chad is like talking to Helen Keller on the phone. "You said it yourself. In fact, one of the first things we ever talked about was how annoying and conceited Chad was. He's not going to give up being on top just because you talk to him."

"Chad and I have a weird friendship,"

"You guys hardly talk."

"We talk." She admits. Does my face show how utterly shocked I am? "I mean, not a whole bunch. But, we're friends. Ish."

"And you never told me this, because why?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, a little." Our voices are getting higher. Harper takes a step back and I take a step forward towards Sonny.

"Why?"

"You said you hated him."

"I don't hate Chad," she angrily yells. "I hate what he is, sometimes, yeah, but Chad can actually be a really nice guy if you get him alone."

"So you've been alone with him."

"Oh, Alex." Sonny groans.

"No, really. This is getting fun."

"I had a life before you came here!"

"The way you put it when you told me, you made it sound like you were _miserable _before Tawni left and I showed up. You said you had no one to relate to and you couldn't stand how rude and inconsiderate and self absorbed some of those people are."

"I still had fun! It wasn't all horrible!"

"Well sorry for assuming."

"You know what they say when you assume."

"That's really original, Sonny." I tout. Harper steps in the middle of us, holding her hands to position us away from each other. I lean in closer, though, and Sonny does the same. We're close enough to feel each other's breath every time we open our mouths. "So you and Chad are all buddy-buddy?"

"We're friends, Alex. Yes. I don't know why that's so horrible, that I have a friend." She retorts. "You know, I like Chad, and he likes me. We've had some interesting times on set and even more off set. He's not as much of a troll as you might think," My eyes grow dark.

"You like Chad."

"Not like that!"

"No, I get it. You'll talk to Chad and he'll agree to talk to the producers about switching back the times and you'll come back all happy and perky with your little friendship all content, while you settle for me because you couldn't get him. Chad was the big stud and you the sweet little girl from the farm that made it to the big time and you two fell in love. But the shows don't get along," I shake my head and take a step closer, feeling Harper's arm dig into my side.

"Alex, stop." Harper pleads, looking at Sonny.

"So you two didn't do anything about it because if you did Nico, Grady, Zora and Tawni wouldn't have talked to you anymore. You would have been an outcast, more than you already were." I take a deep breath. "That's all I am, aren't I? Your settlement. That's all I'll ever be for anyone. I'm the one to come to when the first thing doesn't work out." I wave a hand at the door, towards nothing in particular, but in my mind, I see Justin studying at the table. "When Justin can't work in the substation, there I am. Second best. When Justin can't help my dad with something magic, Alex gets the job. The only thing I'm good for is being chosen for this jacked up special magic _shit _that I don't even want, for putting _you _in danger, and for screwing up anything and everything that can go wrong. Because that's when I get called first: when something is wrong, when something broken, when something can't be fixed." My gut twists into tighter knots and I gulp down hot breath, hoping not to shed a tear in front of Sonny. I see her eyes sparkling with a thin layer of moisture. "I'm never going to be enough for you. I'm just not good enough." Harper keeps looking from me to Sonny, and I push backwards and grab the book off the table, letting my desperate need for fresh air guide me out of the room.

Behind me, Sonny falls into a helpless Harper's arms.

This is such a bad idea. Oh dear goodness it's a bad idea. These are the moments that I _want _Harper standing behind me, whispering in my ear, telling me that I need to get a grip, to realize what I'm doing is so beyond stupid it's almost Max worthy.

I'm huddled in the lair, only the tip of my wand providing a decent amount of light into the room. Everyone else is sleeping, though, no surprise there; it's three o'clock in the morning, and I've not slept much in the two days and a half Sonny and I haven't talked. I took a short break from So Random, citing a family emergency, and have been secretly residing in the lair for that length of time. When someone comes in, I pop out. It's been working really well, until I started eyeing the spell book, and the cauldrons, and the ingredients that still lay on the desk table where we left them. That's when my troubles began.

And my troubles have landed me here, in the exact same spot, stirring and pouring and pouring and stirring ingredients in a little black cauldron. The smooth liquid bubbles and pops, then turns a deep forest green. Wand in hand, I wave it at an empty area near a wall. A stove appears, and then a bowl of brownie batter and spoonful by spoonful I mix together the two and pour them into a greased pan. The brown and green swirl together, reminding me of chocolate chip ice cream, and then it's just brown. The batter sparkles a little, glistening off the light of my wand. It reminds me of the sidewalk in front of the theater near our house. The cement sparkles in the sunlight, as though by accident a container of glitter was mixed into the cement. I shove the pan in the oven, but as I pull my arm back, my elbow grazes the side of the hot oven door.

"Fudge muffins," I hiss, pressing my hand to my burned elbow. Is this an omen? I take my hand off and attempt to look at the burn, but it's in the perfect spot where I can't see, not unless I fully twist my entire arm around. With a heavy sigh, I slide down onto the floor and flip open my cell phone. There are no missed calls or unread text messages from Sonny. Earlier, Nico called me twice and Zora three times, and Grady sent me a couple messages asking me where I was. Harper left me a voicemail, and my dad called, but him I picked up for. Sonny, though, she's been completely absent from my cell phone's life. In my drafts, there are a couple of messages started to her that I just couldn't finish. I open the first one, which I wrote the first day that we fought. I go through each one, and they're all the same: I'm sorry.

I just can't bring myself to press send. I wipe a glob of brownie batter off my cheek, the sweet chocolate running past my lips. This plan better work.

"You're back!" Zora's high pitched voice is the first thing I hear when I walk on set the next day. I awkwardly cross over to the stage where she sits with Nico, who is chomping obnoxiously on a piece of gum and staring at me. Grady is off in the background with Marshall and Sonny, and all three look flustered as they gather around a piece of paper. Sonny doesn't notice me; her eyes are glued to whatever Marshall is holding. I don't know what it was that I expected to see in her when I came back. She doesn't look any different. Did I expect her to be disheveled and torn apart because of our fight? Get real, Alex.

"Yeah, I'm back. Sorry I didn't get to your calls, guys. My dad's aunt was in the hospital." I lie. Zora nods and looks down at her script again. Nico still stares. "Hey, Nico."

"Hello." He says shortly.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh no," he says dramatically. "Nothing's wrong at all. It's not like we needed you here the past two days since the show is slowly dying. But hey, it's all good." Turning on the spot, Nico is gone. I feel bad, but think back to the brownies sitting on my desk, still steaming hot as though they had just come out of the oven. The wonders of magic, right? Abruptly, Marshall walks over, his hand shaking a little with the papers he's holding. Sonny finally notices me, and she stumbles a little. Our eyes lock. It doesn't last long, because she turns away too quickly, but for the briefest moment I saw the broken girl I imagined I'd come back to see.

"Welcome back, Alex." He says quickly, not taking a breath in between the words. "We have a big, big problem, guys. Mackenzie Falls has taken nearly 75% of our viewers."

"Why don't we just switch _our _time?" Zora says.

"You don't think I haven't thought of that?" Marshall is clutching the papers in his hand so tightly that his finger pokes through the middle. "The station can't move us. No shows _want _to switch, and we can't switch mid-season anyway. The Falls has a different schedule than us. They split their season's right down the middle, for summer and winter releases. They had the perfect opportunity to switch and they did."

"We could lie," I offer. "Tell the station our season is over, and then switch our timeslot. We could break our season in half. We have a ton of sketches lined up anyway. We could claim mini hiatus."

"Not everyone is comfortable with lying," Sonny says bitterly.

"Besides," Marshall interrupts. "The station only ordered a twenty five episode season. We're already at eighteen. We can't just take a hiatus so near the end." He sighs. "Honestly, guys, I'd start packing up anything you've got laying around the station. Once we're done filming the remainder of the season, we're through."

"No-"

"Marshall-"

"We can't just-"

"Enough." He claps his hands together. "We had a good run." His face falls, and I watch him walk away. I've never seen him look so dejected. Zora slips out of her seat and slowly walks away, leaving an awkward silence behind between Sonny and me. We don't look at each other. I pick up the papers Marshall dropped and read the numbers. Our ratings are as down as they could get.

"You just left." I look up. Sonny has her arms folded across her chest and is looking at her shoes. "No note, no text. I came to set thinking we were going to work things out and you weren't here."

"I…" my voice trails off and I set the papers down.

"What? Did your cell phone explode? Were your thumbs broken and you were physically incapable of sending a text message?" She snatches the papers up. "I see no injuries on you so I'm going to assume you're healthy. Physically, that is. I don't know what is going on in your head." Her heels turn and she begins to walk away, but she stops. My stomach jumps. "And for your information," her head doesn't even turn around. "if you can't even trust me when I say there is nothing between Chad and I, this isn't going to work." My heart pounds a little faster. And then she speaks one more time, her voice a little lower and less harsh than before. "You were good enough for me." She walks away, her shoes clinking on the cement floor as she goes. When I hear nothing else, I slump into Zora's chair.

This is the most uncomfortable position ever. I'm crouched behind a fake bush in The Falls studio waiting for the lobby to empty. Chad's dressing room is obviously the one with the flashing neon sign on the front with his face embroidered in the door. There is only one person left, a custodian, and a mop is in one hand and an iPod in the other. Although he's distracted, I know I wouldn't have time to get to the door and unlock it with magic without being noticed. The phone rings at the desk, he answers, and before I can decipher what the conversation is about he sprints to the nearest stage door. Moving briskly, my wand flicks out of my pocket and I open Chad's dressing room door.

I've got the brownies in my bag. They still smell fresh out of the oven, and I find a pen sitting on the desk. With Chad's own personal stationary that sits on the desk, I write a quick note. _Chad, _it reads. _I made these brownies for you. I loved working on the movie with you. I hope we can work together again soon. Love, Miley. Xoxo _

The door jiggles behind me and I dive behind the couch, my wand still clutched in my hand. All he has to do is eat a brownie, and then I can cast the spell. Mackenzie Falls favorite poster child won't be so loveable to the masses anymore. Chad walks in, and behind him trails Sonny. My heart drops to my stomach.

"Can't you just try?"

"I'm sorry." He puts his hands up in a mock defensive position. "I just can't go around asking for time slot changes. Chad Dylan Cooper works best at prime time."

"It's our time!"

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." He shrugs. "Speaking of kitchen, what is that heavenly chocolatey smell?" I try and smile, knowing he's found the brownies, but I can't stop looking at Sonny. "How sweet. They're from Miley."

"Miley Cyrus?"

"The one and only," he picks one up, moving it from hand and hand. "We just finished filming scenes for a little movie her boyfriend is producing." Sonny rolls her eyes.

"Can you just focus?"

"On what?"

"So Random!"

"Why on earth would I do that?"

"Chad!"

"Okay, okay. I get you're angry that we took your time, but there is nothing I can do about it. As much as all you crazies over at So Random think I'm out to get you, I'm really not. Well, I wouldn't mind getting _you…_" I feel like punching something.

"Gross," Sonny shrivels her nose.

"I'm joking." He doesn't look like he's joking. Asshole. Just then, his hand moves towards his mouth as though he is about to take a bite, but he pulls his hand down again and begins to talk. "If you want your show to do better you need to come up with something that will pull in the audience."

"Like?"

"If I told you that, this wouldn't be much of a competition, now would it?" He eats the whole brownie at once. Fumbling with my wand, (which at some point during my intense staring at Sonny and intense seething at Chad had slipped from my fingers and onto the floor), I point it between the space of the couch and table. "Voltus abeo!" I whisper. It's a tiny spark and hardly recognizable. There is no sound. But the only problem is, in the fumbling for my wand, I picked it up backwards. A slow, creeping cold climbs my spine and my teeth chatter. I let my wand drop onto the carpet. My arms shake, and I can feel a bubbling in my stomach. I licked a tiny bit of the batter. I can barely hear the words Sonny and Chad are exchanging now; I hear the door close and I know I'm alone. My entire body shakes, but the cold has subsided. And then, everything stops. But I know something is different. I know something is wrong.

What have I done?

**Sorry. It's been forever. Way too much going on this summer. **

**Review and let me know. I'll try and be more quick now. I've got some sweet ideas. Hopefully.**


	4. Remember Me, Alex

The sun beats down against us through the window pane, wrapping us in a comfortable spring warmth. My hand is wrapped in Sonny's with her head resting against my chest. We're lying in the window seat at her house watching the calm suburbia LA traffic flitter about. I feel every fallen breath and every deep sigh. Her thumb taps against the palm of my hand in a little beat. The house is silent, but comfortably so. I let my head rest against the frame and close my eyes, soaking in the moment, trying to make every memory I can; I want to remember the heat of the sun, the feel of her soft skin, and the ups and downs of every long, relaxing breath she takes.

"I'm sorry," I whisper into her ear, letting my lips brush against her cheek. I pull my head back up and close my eyes again. "I know Chad doesn't meant anything." Her body twists and she turns to look at me. I watch Sonny's eyes – those two brown orbs with black dots in the middle – trace the outline of my face, only stopping to look at my own eyes for a split second. She stands and takes my hand in hers, pulling me forward into a hug. We sway for a moment and she guides me over to the entertainment center.

Music.

I laugh a little as she twirls me while simultaneously pulling the hair tie from my hair. She pulls me in letting my head rest on her shoulder. I can feel Sonny's fingers pulling through my hair and tickling my neck, her lips touching wherever her fingers go. I pull my head up and kiss her cheeks, then her nose, and then her forehead. I leave her lips; we're just staring now. Her fingers slip under the hem of my shirt and press against my stomach. "Sonny?" I mumble. I try to mimic her actions but I suddenly can't move. My fingers are hard like stone. An unpleasant tingle trickles up my fingers making every inch of my body that it touches exactly like my fingers; stone like. Sonny's lips are cold on my skin. I can't push her away and no matter how hard I try nothing comes out of my mouth. She steps away from me.

"Love," the word falls gently from her lips. "Chad." Her words are not graceful or careful, and her eyes turn cold. I feel her hand clench my wrist and something inside me shatters. "He's everything you're not." The room turns a deep blood red. There is no furniture or sunlight. Everything is silent. An invisible binding wraps around my slender body from my shoulders down to each ankle. Every intake of breath feels like a knife stabbing my heart over and over again. "Chad is perfect. You are nothing." The ground begins to shake. Cracks snake through the concrete and loop through one another until I'm standing in the very middle of a giant spider web made entirely of the floor beneath me. With an effortless tap from Sonny, I'm on the floor. For a second I see nothing, but then everything becomes clearer. It's not Sonny standing before me anymore. Chad leans forward, his sandy blonde hair falling lightly over his crystal eyes, and his lips turn up into a delicious smile. It's a smile perfected after years of practice in front of the camera. He lets a hand fall on my head and, like you would do to a dog, patted my hair. "I'm everything you're not. I am perfect. I am everything." The ground begins to shake again, but this time, it's slower. Around me streams of light enclose around me and shoot like falling stars. Chad's face becomes dimmer and dimmer until it is only a blur of dark grey. A blood curdling scream stabs through my ears. Clamping my hands around my ears, I let out my own bellowing scream into the mix. Everything around me collapses.

And now I'm awake.

What the hell? I crack my back as I lean up. I'm on the floor, and as I grope around in the darkness, I feel the frame of a couch and the leg of a table. My wand is pinned in my belt loop. I can feel it pushing against my stomach. Somewhere outside of the room, I can hear voices laughing and talking but here, I am alone. No one is around me. Standing, I slip my wand out and hold it out in front of me casting a ball of light into the nearest lamp. It isn't a lot of light, but it's enough, and that's when the memories come flooding back.

Making the brownies...

Licking some batter by accident...

Coming to the studio...

Chad...

Sonny...

The spell...

And the moment that the spell backfired. I'm not a person to worry a lot, but even the silence of the room has me on edge. I can still feel an uncomfortable prickling in the pit of my stomach and the stale, sticky taste of magic in my mouth. Chad's discarded brownie remnants are on the table. There are still voices outside. I can't go out there. How do I explain why I'm in Chad Dylan Cooper's dressing room? It has to be early. I feel for my phone but it's not in my pocket. With slight hesitation, I wave my wand around my body and now I'm in my bedroom. I flick my wand and my brush comes soaring at me from the dresser and I run it through my hair. I change my clothes, but I stop short of trying to make anything look cute or attractive. I just don't have it in me today.

I'm finally in the prop room. I wish I wasn't. Nico and Grady throw a little wave at me, but they never look up from their checkers game. They look at each other, though, and I can tell that although their communication is silent, it's most definitely about me. I uneasily move to the couch with Zora. She barely looks up from her book as she moves further over on the couch until she's pushed against the arm chair and as far from me as possible. So this is the spell?

The door opens and Sonny walks in. I'm standing before I realize it. She's the first one to look at me, but it's for only half a second. She turns away before I can even blink and there she sits with Grady and Nico, eyeing their checkers movement abnormally close. She isn't going to ignore me though. No. I can't let this happen. She needs to know. I walk over to her and tap her shoulder, and she only _hm's _quietly without looking up.

"I need to talk to you."

"Do you?" she mutters absently.

"Sonny." I plead more urgently. She looks up finally but at the door, not at me. I follow her out and now we're standing in the hallway. "I did the spell."

"Sorry..." Sonny finally looks at me. "-you did _what?_"

"It didn't work." I say. "Not on Chad at least. I messed up."

"Shocker."

"Just listen, Sonny. I put the brownies in Chad's dressing room. He came in but you were with him. I had to be careful because I knew you wouldn't...approve."

"Then that's when you should have realized you shouldn't be there."

"He finally ate the brownie," I press on. "But when he came in I wasn't ready and I was just hiding behind the couch. I didn't think he'd come in that quickly. I had thrown myself down on the floor without thinking about my wand. When I picked up my wand, I picked it up the wrong way. I put the spell on myself without thinking about it."

"So? You never ate one of the brownies." Five. Four. Three. Two. One. "Oh Alex, you ate one of the brownies?"

"Just some batter." I grumble. "By accident."

"Yeah everything is a big accident with you isn't it?"

"I'm so-"

"In the room, girls." Marshall waves us in the room. We go inside with a slight run and take a seat.

Marshall walks in the room with a fury in his step. His hand is clenching a fistful of papers and he slams them down on the table behind the couch. Everyone looks up at him as he begins to pace back and forth. I slowly stand up and walk over to him and pick up the papers.

"It's our popularity ratings." I say. "Nico, high. Grady, high. Sonny, holy crap. Off the charts. Zora, high. Alex -" Low. Very low. Off the charts low. My name doesn't even have a line on the pretty colored line chart. Sonny stands up and grabs the papers without even looking at me. Her mouth drops and she tosses the papers to Grady and Nico, who then pass it to Zora. Now everyone's looking at me except for Marshall whose head is still in his hands.

"Did you read the comments?" Marshall grumbled from behind his hands.

"Do we want to?"

His hands drop to his side. "No." he says simply. I fall backwards into the chair behind me and push my head into the plushy cushion. It's the spell. To everyone now, I'm ugly and horrible on the inside. No one likes me. That's why Nico and Grady were acting weird around me and Zora isn't talking. I thought Sonny was just still mad at me and everyone was taking her side. Shit. "Do you guys realize what this means?" Marshall is pacing again but his steps are longer and fewer in between. "The only ratings we changed were how the public views _her, _and not in a good way. Usually when a popularity rating is as low as Alex's, we'd just fire her." I begin to open my mouth to protest but I get a _shhhh _from everyone in the room. "Unfortunately, however, her low rating has caused our shows rating to plummet even further than it already was. That affects everyone. Even more so, it affects the shows lifespan which has been cut considerably shorter. I received a call from Mr. Conrad this morning regarding Alex. Seeing as we can't fire her in the middle of a contract, he doesn't see how there is a viable way to save the show. Effective immediately after the filming of next weeks episode, So Random is canceled." A rock drops in my stomach. The room is quiet, but the silence speaks louder than anything else. Zora rubs her forehead and walks out of the room. Grady throws an arm around Nico and they follow Zora out. Marshall takes one look at the papers and makes a movement to pick them up, but then shakes his head and just follows the other three out. Sonny goes to the couch and buries her head in her knees.

"Sonny..." Her back is turned away from me. She's sitting on the couch with her legs tucked beneath her arms and her head is placed gently on the top of her knees. "Please look at me." I walk a little closer and lean up against the arm of the couch. The couch shifts a little and her shoulders shake, but it's not from my body weight moving the furniture. I hear the slightest squeak and I know she's crying. "Please don't cry."

"It's over, Alex. You ruined everything."

"Sonny,"

"I don't want to go back to Wisconson." She looks up. Her eyes are anywhere but mine. They're puffy and red and long streaks of tears run down her face. "I don't want to go back to that. I want to be here on So Random, and you ruined it. You ruined everything."

"I can fix it."

"With what? Magic? That worked out well before."

"I just have to get the spell off of me. There has to be a counter potion."

"Just stop!" she screams. "Did you read these comments? Did you? Did you see what they put? _Alex Russo comes off as an arrogant know it all. _Ha, know it all? _Alex Russo takes over the spotlight on So Random in a bad way. Her gruff attitude and sharp personality makes fans cringe with disdain. _At least they got your personality spot on. _Alex Russo is So Random – as in, no one understands what her skits are about. That's how random them are. _Oh, that's interesting! _Alex Russo treats others on set poorly and causes mayhem and ruckus with her fellow costars and those who work on set._" She throws the paper at my stomach and I flinch. "They just know you _so well." _

"The potion is still in effect on me." I say slowly. "So it's still affecting you as well. I understand that. You're talking like this because of the potion."

"No," she shakes her head and pushes herself off the couch. "I'm talking like this because I'm _angry at you. _Or is that too impossible for you to comprehend? That someone is actually angry at _the _Alex Russo? Because guess what Alex? Everything isn't about you. Just because you're some super Wizard doesn't mean you can just do whatever the hell you want or think whatever the hell you want-"

"Sonny-"

"-because you can't. You tried putting Chad under a spell and it backfired. You screwed up. Now it's affecting me. I thought you loved me? Why couldn't you just believe me? Why couldn't you just have accepted that Chad and I have a friendship and that it was nothing more than that? _Why did you have to meddle? _I had it handled."

"You had it handled? I saw you two flirting!"

"No, Alex. You saw _Chad _flirting. Did you once see me respond?" No. "You have nothing to say do you ? Because you know I'm right."

"Sonny, I'm sorry." I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry. Shit. I'm crying. "I want to fix this. I'll fix this." She leans forward and I grab her hand quickly before she can move any further back. My fingers slip between hers and I pull her closer to me so I can feel her breath. Tears fall from her eyes, mirroring my own. Her chocolate brown eyes follow the trail that a fallen tear leaves down my face. Sonny's free hand wipes it off my chin. I kiss her finger, and surprisingly, her finger doesn't move away. It lingers for a moment on my lips until it slips down tracing my jaw line and then brushing against my shoulder. Her hand grips my waist and she squeezes a little. I move in closer to her, leaving a line of kisses down her throat. I take my hand away from hers so both of my hands can cup her face. We lean in together and wrap ourselves in a kiss we've never shared before. Her hands push me back onto the couch and we fall together, not breaking our kiss. I feel her hands twisting through my hair, but at the same time I feel her pulling away. I try and keep her close but she pushes back.

"I don't know if it's the spell," she says through deep, long breaths. "Or if I'm genuinely angry with you for the Chad thing or for ruining the show." I try pulling her down back on top of me but she stands and backs away. I lean up and fix my shirt. "But I can't do this. I can't be around you, because I feel like I hate you. I feel like..." she pauses, taking another deep breath and brushing strands of hair behind her ear. "I feel like I never want to see you again, Alex Russo."

Then she's gone. I'm all cried out, though. Now I just want to scream and yell and break things. I grab my cell phone and go to dial Harper's number but it's not there next to me anymore.

"Looking for this?" The voice echoes off the walls and then my phone falls down into my lap. One loud _pop _later and I'm staring into the icy blue eyes of my Aunt Megan. Her hair is pulled up into a high pony tale, accentuating the bony features of her face. She's paler and thinner. "Hello niece." I grip my wand tighter than I ever have before. "Oh don't worry, I'm not here to do anything. I just wanted to check in. I am your aunt after all."

"Some aunt," I scoff. I'm on my feet now, my wand outstretched to point at her throat. "I've been practicing," I warn. She laughs a little and takes a seat, crossing her legs and relaxing with her head leaned back against her hands.

"Like I said, Alex. I'm not here to fight you."

"Then why are you here?"

"To make sure you remember me." From her jacket, she pulls a heavy looking manilla envelope. I eye it, but I don't make a movement towards picking it up. That's what she wants.

"How did you get in here? You're powerless."

"There is more than one kind of magic, baby Russo." she stands. "You say you've been practicing, but let me tell you Alex: you've been practicing all the wrong things. There are all sorts of magic in this world. If you're too _pathetic _to grasp it, then you deserve to be powerless. I could teach you more than your father ever will." Her fingers dance across the envelope on the coffee table. "Remember me, Alex." She snickers and then is gone. When I've thoroughly checked all corners, I go back to the envelope and dump everything out. Stacks of pictures fall out and my heart sinks as I flip through each one. Sonny at the store, Sonny at the doctors, Sonny at the studio... they're all of Sonny, except the very last pile. They're all of Sonny and I, either in one of our rooms or in a private area. Every single one shows us holding hands or kissing. I reach the last photo only to realize it's stuck together to another one. I carefully tear the edges away. The photo is covered in a red sticky goo.

Blood is covering Sonny's face in the photo.


End file.
